Star Wars: Coldiron Squadron
by Dash Nolan
Summary: A tale of gritty intrigue and starfighter action! Just as the New Republic begins to settle in, a ghost from the past appears with the power to undo everything. They now turn to a nearly-forgotten hero to lead a young squadron and eliminate the dangers, both outside and within the New Republic. (17 ABY, Action/Angst)
1. Chapter 1

Star Wars: Coldiron Squadron

by Dash Nolan

Part 1

At six hundred kilometers an hour, trees are not trees. At that speed, they become a furious river of browns and greens, two looming, winding walls on either side, frozen at their peak and ready to crash inwards. The trees of Naboo were a shining example of their kind, thick and lush everywhere you looked. It was what happened when most of your planet was made of water. A T-16 Skyhopper, a small knife's blade of a craft with a single seat, a single gun, and little else, was cutting a very narrow path through the jungle. At some points, the little Skyhopper's wingtips passed trunks by no more than a couple meters.

The airspeeder banked right and into a clearing. For a brief moment, Mar Devlek could see beyond the trees. He was a few minutes outside Kaadara, a beautiful seaside town and his current home. A few clicks west, Mar spotted the mountains reflecting the dipping sun. It would be dark in a couple hours. He reached the edge of the clearing and returned his attention to path finding. The way ahead had looked good ten seconds ago, but now he could see the low-hanging branch and Mar pulled back just in time to rise above the tree's arm and break through the treetops.

He peeled right in a wide arc toward the sea. The sun was setting on his right, and the waters reflected the light in small, chaotic peaks, making staggered shapes in momentary flashes. One of the flickers caught his eye, burning itself into his sight as a transparent blue silhouette. Mar knew that shape, those predatory spikes. His heartrate shot up, pounding against his burgundy flightsuit. Sweat practically leapt from his scalp, and his short blonde hair was soaking under his helmet. Mar dove back down through the wide foliage and levelled out low enough to blast dirt in all directions. He knew it wasn't them, it was a flash of nothing off of whatever, just like the last twenty times, and the twenty before that. He had to get home.

Mar liked the building style that was used through most of the major cities on Naboo, incorporating lots of colors from the nature around it, tan walls and green roofs and almost no right angles. He throttled back as the T-16 entered the airspace apove Kaadara. Mar took care to stay well outside the city spaceport's radar range, using a broad turn to kill his speed as he came low towards a small peninsula. The small private hangar came to life, lights framing the entrance as the large door shifted aside, sending a flock of birds skyward. The airspeeder's wings folded up and Mar touched down, the hangar door shutting loudly.

It was a beautiful house, far better than anything before, such as a microscopic bunk aboard a Mon Calimari cruiser. Mar stepped out of the flight suit on his way to the kitchen and tossed the dusty one-piece carelessly onto a wood-framed sofa. When he woke up that morning, Mar had swore he was finally going to cook himself a dinner. Now he swore as he reached into a cupboard and pulled out a bag of jerked bantha and a fourth of Corellian Ale. The drum in his chest continued to race. Mar remembered the chems behind the mirror in the refresher, then remembered the two months he had managed to stay off them. The ale would have to do.

Dropping onto the sofa and the legs of the flight suit, Mar found a feed of a pod race from Nar Shadaa. The Hutts had managed to cut a track through the dense buildings covering the moon. When he was a child, Mar's father would sneak him holorecordings of pod races from the Outer Rim. He used to dream of being in that seat, dangling behind fire, moving quicker than a blaster bolt, centimeters from the ground. Now it was just a welcome distraction. He sat back, pulled from the bottle of ale, and started to pick apart the drivers' mistakes. The races were short, but they were only heats. The event went on for several hours, and eventually the empty bottle rolled to a stop on the flightsuit next to Mar, his head rolled back and snoring. It was an erratic, restless sleep.

Sunlight skipping across the green waters burned at Mar's half-closed eyes. His head was full of fluids and he coughed and snorted and knocked the bottle to the stone tile floor. The drop was heavy and loud, but the bottle remained intact. He loved living on a peninsula for the gorgeous sunsets, and hated it for the harsh sunrises. His comm unit was beeping away underneath him. Mar rolled awkardly and groped around, his eyes still recalibrating. The device was buried in his flight suit. He dug it out and played the waiting message. Nothing. An error, the file was corrupted. Very few people knew how to contact him, and he decided that this was no accident.

Mar threw the file to the personal terminal in his bedroom. The door caught on a small pile of clothing, which he kicked vaguely toward the bed. He had been right. The recording wasn't corrupted, it was encoded. Only twice in his military career had he been given encryption keys. Per regulations, since he had discharged with codeword clearance, Mar had kept the keys, just in case. He tried the first one, but the file remained gibberish. He ran it through the second key. It was a code he had been issued during his time with Wraith Squadron. They had found themselves well behind enemy lines or deep undercover more than once, and the key was invaluable. The terminal let off an upbeat ding, and the file was sorted out. It was simply a few lines of text.

 _"I am a friend, not a specter. You should watch your shadow, there are ghosts around every corner. I will be at the Cafe Tides this afternoon, alone."_

"Specter," he mumbled. "Shadow. Ghosts." Mar ran his hand up his face and tired to shake away the lingering sleep. That was a mistake, as it brought his hangover to the forefront. The message had been phrased very carefully. He was going to have to meet this person. The struggle to get from sofa to refresher was immense, but the warm water helped move the last of the drink out of his head. Mar lingered under the stream, clawing at the cool tiles with toes, trying not to think too hard about any one thing. Of course, this meant that his mind filled with images of her. High cheekbones, blue eyes, auburn curls, and enough kills to make her ace at least three times. They had both been there, they both knew, so Mar wondered why he hadn't contacted her either. Apparently she had decided to be the one to reach out.

The hours between sunrise and afternoon felt like days, and Mar was forced to pour himself something to prevent the anticipation from driving him crazy. When the time finally did come, he choked down two rolls to dry up and guided the Skyhopper out of the hangar. Mar flew past the peninsula's end, out over the water, then turning to fly parallel to the coast. Normally he liked to keep the airspeeer low and kick up some mist around the ship, but the ocean traffic wouldn't die down until evening, so he kept high.

The capital city of Theed stabbed up through the horizon, beige peaks and wide emerald domes. Mar brought it down just outside the city, landing in a little slip he kept under a fake name he couldn't remember. He rented a speeder and coasted into town. Even though Cafe Tides was on another edge of the city, the traffic was dense. Mar couldn't stand being stuck. He blasted down a side street, wove between several more before reaching the small shopping area. Tides was one was many in the immediate area. Mar's thoughts raced at the prosepct of seeing her again, but that smell always forced him to slow. Fresh bread, almost ready, hints of local flowers in the dough. The more affluent came from far to get loaves from Naboo's capital. It wasn't why he had decided to settle here, but it was a major perk.

White and sage cloth shifted in the light breeze. Mar stepped into the open air cafe. There was a beautiful woman sitting alone in the far corner, enjoying a glass of something red with a chunk of fruit floating atop. She was much older than himself, mid-sixties, he figured. She stared at him at smiled a polite, practiced smile. Then he spotted the red bangs. It was certainly his contact, but not who he was expecting. He took a seat.

"Hello, Mar," she said, her tone kind.

Mar laughed dryly, shaking his head. "Hello, Chief Mothma."

"Not anymore. I have embraced my time away from bureacuracy."

"I bet. I was happy when I heard you recovered, though the news never said anything more specific than a "toxin". If you don't mind, what happened?"

"You would not believe me if I told you."

"Know what?" Mar stretched his neck as he spoke. "I'm pretty sure I would."

She laughed again. He didn't like it, it was too well versed, too consistent.

"You are right. Of course you're right. Which brings us to the subject of why I'm here."

Mar said, "That message was a little ham-fisted, don't you think? You hit every buzzword but the big one."

Her hands appeared on the table, open, palms upward. Another well-timed gesture of friendliness.

"It probably was, but I had to get your attention, and if the message had my name on it, I wasn't sure that you would come."

"That was a good guess."

"Yet here you are. Would you like a drink?"

"I thought you were going to be someone else."

"Commander Murleen?" Mothma offered before taking another sip.

He stared at her for some time, watching the breeze play at her black and gold headscarf and deep red bangs. Mar watched her eyes, and they seemed to say nothing but "hello, I understand, tell me your story." He wondered if that was learnable or genetic.

Mar asked, "So why are you here then?"

"I heard that your friend Tycho was married not too long ago. How was it?"

Dodging the question, he thought, always the politician.

"I didn't go."

"I know."

"You do?"

She avoided the temptation to be condescending, saying, "You were at the center of one of the Alliance's best-kept secrets, do you think we would let you simply fall off the radar?"

"So I was never discharged, just on very extended leave."

This time, Mar noticed the slight rasp in her laugh. Time was catching up, if slowly.

She said, "Rookie One, if the Alliance was calling you in, they would have sent something a bit more official than an old woman in a scarf. I am an old friend asking a favor. If you say no, I am off-world within the hour, and you can go back to trying to put your speeder into one of those lovely trees."


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

"You were at the center of one of the Alliance's best-kept secrets, do you think we would let you simply fall off the radar?"

"So I was never discharged, just on very extended leave."

This time, Mar noticed the slight rasp in her laugh. Time was catching up, if slowly.

She said, "Rookie One, if the Alliance was calling you in, they would have sent something a bit more official than an old woman in a scarf. I am simply a friend asking a favor. If you say "no", I am off-world within the hour, and you can go back to trying to put your speeder into one of those lovely trees."

Mar snorted, shook his head, and waved over a server droid. It hurried away on its wheel with his whiskey order.

"I apologize," Mothma stated, "That was a step too much."

The pilot across the table kept quiet and wore a tight, frustrated grin.

"If you have something that needs to be said, then do-so. You will not offend me."

Mar shook his head.

The droid's wheel squeaked loudly as it approached the table. Mar took his drink. The skeletal droid waited by Mar's side, rocking slightly. "I've got a tab," he spat dismissively at the large, yellow glass eye. Satisfied with this, and a quick facial scan, the droid scurried to another table.

He pointed the drink vaguely at Mothma, ice tapping crystal, a few drops darkening the white tablecloth. The pilot believed he knew Mon Motha well, believed he knew her type. She thought that she knew war, she considered herself a living martyr, burdened with immense wealth and resources. Mar used to respect her. They had met at an award ceremony following the Battle of Yavin. Many more had survived that day than most cared to remember, Farlander, Murleen, Antilles. Himself. Despite that, the Holos that ran on repeat across the braver parts of the galaxy were of one lone Rebel pilot, a Wookie, and a Corellian son-of-a-bitch.

Mar looked at Mothma as he spoke, but his words seemed directed at the wind, "Han Solo is a son-of-a-bitch."

"Mar, as much as I would like to drink and reminisce, I feel that this time could be better spent-"

"No," he said. "No, this is how we're going to spend this time, because if you are going to drag me out here, pretending to be Ru and wasting my time with a job offer, then we are going to move at my pace."

Mothma smiled, "Fair enough."

He couldn't stop hating her smile. It was a weapon that had brought down Senators and cities and armies, and its power was that only a few dozen people knew it was a weapon at all. Gial Ackbar was one of the few who knew her for what she was, but the fact that he still respected the woman was beyond Mar. Mar held the Admiral in extremely high regard, the Mon Cal had seen him through the some of the most difficult missions in his career. The Admiral never preached, the pilots weren't afraid to look him in the eye, and every soldier on that ship knew the Admiral had stepped through the same hell as them.

Mar admitted to himself that Admiral Ackbar was a brilliant tactician, but his view was limited. The Mon Cal was the master of everything on the board, but Mothma's soft hands controlled those around the board. The Admiral could be pointed in a direction and he would win you anything in that direction, but he had no idea what to do with himself after the battle was over. It was in those moments, as the dust settled and the blood dried, that people like Mothma fought their battles, and she was the best.

Mar smirked and began, "I heard a story once."

"I'm sure." Mothma said.

"I was on Coruscant, just outside the Capital."

"What had brought you to the Capital?"

"It doesn't matter."

Mothma smiled. "Okay."

"There was this little bar, real sithhole, just sitting there and smoking and buzzing at the bottom of some huge tower. And I'm sitting next to these two guys, eighties, maybe. One of them won't shut up about all his time in the Senate ages ago. He maintained droids on the Senate office floors. A protocol droid had locked up and fallen over right outside Senator Palpatine's office."

Mon Mothma sipped patiently, though her foot began to tap air under the table. Mar went on.

"So this guy is on his hands and knees, working on this broken droid, within arm's reach of the future Emperor's office, and he swears that he can hear you behind that door. Apparently you and Palpatine were shouting back and forth. Lots of politically-incorrect language, and he said a lamp broke."

Her lips still curved upwards, glistening faintly from her recent sip, Mothma said, "Neither of us broke anything and I'm sorry, but what exactly is your point?"

"Point?" Mar asked before emptying his glass. "There wasn't a point, I just wanted to know if the story was true."

"It is."

"Huh, neat." was all Mar gave as he gestured toward another server droid.

Cloth-wrapped glow lamps came to life around the pagoda as Naboo's sun disappeared. A cool wind from the coast cut through the city and tossed a few napkins to the floor. Mothma politely retrieved her's from the floor and balled up.

She said, "Do you have anymore anecdotes, or may I get on with why I'm here?"

"Please," Mar said, still trying to get the attention of a droid. "Go on."

"Thank you. There has been a small amount of Imperial Remnant build-up in the Nulan system."

"Hook Nebula? That's mostly empty space, maybe a couple breathing rocks."

"Which is precisely why, until now, we have had a minimal presence in the area, a single squadron and garrison on a small planet. Two days ago, while on patrol, three of our fighters on patrol in the area were attacked from seemingly nowhere. Two survived, one is in critical condition." Mothma dropped her head just slightly and paused, as if to pray, before continuing. "The pilot who can speak was able to get through most of a debrief before being taken to the medical ward."

"Why was the pilot taken to medical?"

"She had psychological trauma."

Mar finally had his drink. He took a long sip before asking, "What the hell did she see?"

Mothma allowed herself a smirk. "Be careful, you wouldn't want to sound interested."

"You were the one who wanted to move things along, so, you know, let's do that."

"Yes, of course," she said. "She reported, and I quote, "a shimmering blue claw that appeared from nothing," She collapsed afterwards."

Mar set down his glass and allowed his head to roll back. The ceiling was a framework of heavily-polished red wood. Buried within the frame, he spotted the thin line where panels of awning would emerge if it started to rain. It was a very simple mechanism, served its purpose, there when needed, gone when not.

The pilot's tone slowly started losing its edge. "Keep talking."

"I'm afraid I don't have much else at the moment."

Mar sighed, "It was only a matter of time. Though I bet it would have been a lot longer if you had ordered a proper investigation of what the bucketheads were really doing at Dreighton, instead of just torching the whole damn sector."

Mothma softly shook her glass. "You should speak up, I'm not certain every journalist in the Outer Rim heard you."

"Fine, continue." The ice tapped loudly against Mar's teeth, and he began to wave at their server, then stopped, saying, "I'll get it myself."

Mothma put a hand on his forearm. "If this is a briefing, I would prefer you be as sober as possible."

He sat back down, but said, "Lando Calrissian hasn't been sober a day in his life, but you had no problem throwing him at that Death Star."

"That was a different time, but you know that well." She tilted back the last drops from her glass. "Back to the matter at hand. I am asking you to take command of the squadron at the Nulan outpost, discover if someone has restarted production of the Phantom TIEs, and train the pilots there to combat such a threat."

He wanted to say "yes". It was a base instinct, a comfortable reflex to a clearly-defined goal. The old academy tattoo on his shoulder seemed to burn. Mar struggled down the heroic urges.

"Why me and these random pilots," he asked. "Why don't you just send in the Rogues and be done with it?"

"Three reasons," she said. "Firstly, we know almost nothing about this threat. It could take weeks of recon before any discussion of a strike begins. The Alliance cannot have Rogue Squadron sitting on their thumbs for that long. Second, you are one of only two known survivors of the Phantom incident. You are uniquely suited for this mission."

Half-interested, Mar asked, "And the third?"

Mothma leaned forward and her diplomatic smile became something else, something young and wry. In the shadow of the glowlamps, thirty years disappeared from her face.

"The third reason is that I know how badly you want to go. The outpost you would be heading to, Nulan, we had it built in the early days of the Rebellion. It went up at the same time as our base on Dantooine." She leaned back. "We were so proud of the footprint we had made in the Empire. We were so young and full of fire. When I stepped down as Chief of State, and saw that I could make real, immediate change from the outside, that fire returned. You are going to take the mission."

He couldn't help but laugh. She had read him completely.

Mar said, "I'm assuming you're doing all this through the Admiral?"

"Among others, yes."

"Will I be reporting to him?"

"No, your outfit would be autonomous. We're not certain how much Remnant presence is there, but we wouldn't want to tip our hand with too many transmissions."

He pointed towards her, "You wouldn't have come all the way out here based on the ramblings of one shellshocked pilot. You have something else."

Mothma nodded, "One of the Astromech droids returned mostly intact. It seems that it got a good look at one of the crafts before being grazed by a blast. Technicians at the outpost are working around the clock to repair the droid and its memory, but I have received an early report. They managed to restore a few still images."

"And those would be where?"

She nodded, smiling, toward the city spaceport. "Aboard your shuttle, which leaves in five hours."

Mar rolled his eyes, "Of course they are," he said, chuckling softly. "If you had a few pictures of the Phantoms already, why didn't you just show them to me, instead of this whole production?"

Mon Mothma stood from the table, adjusting her scarf against breeze. "I needed to know that you wanted this. You were right, by the way."

"What?"

"You were right, when you said that Han Solo is a son-of-a-bitch. Most great men are."


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

Tatooine had no industry, minimal pollution and hardly any moisture, which gave its small population one of the clearest night skies of any civilized world. The sand was soft like down beneath seven-year-old Mar Devlek, who laid down to watch the still frame drama of the stars and nebulae above with deep longing. His dirty blonde hair pooled around his head. A portable heater atop a large stone warmed the right side of Mar's face, but he couldn't feel it. The dots and strokes against black canvas captivated him. The boy couldn't count as high as the number of stars and systems he had memorized.

Mar's father was resting against another stone, hewn and rounded by wind to the size of an astromech droid. The old man was looking to the sky as well, stretching out his gray beard. Mar sometimes imagined he could hear his father's beard rustle like the sands. His parents were good to him, and provided as much as moisture farmers could.

On a trip into Mos Espa with his father, Mar once overheard an offworld pilot say to another that keeping his ship running for longer than a week was "like squeezing water from a rock." The pilot's friend had laughed, but Mar didn't. He didn't understand that it was a joke. When his father explained it later, that was when he knew how low his family sat on the galaxy's priority list.

However, when Mar laid like this and allowed the space above to engulf him, he felt like he owned the galaxy. Mar would pick out a system and imagine himself the captain of a small fleet of mercenaries who had just jumped in-system and declared themselves kings. He would listen to his father's blanket of a voice tell story after story about princesses and space pirates, and Mar was often carried home at the end, snoring against his father's rough tunic.

His father took a long breath, and Mar smiled, because that meant a story was coming.

"Far away from here, in the Alzoc system-"

"How far is that?" Mar asked.

"Very, very far. You couldn't get there even if you ran your whole life."

"Dad," little Mar groaned, "I know that, I'm not a baby. If I had a ship, I could hyperspace jump and be there like that!" He snapped his fingers. It sounded like the soft pops the heater sometimes made.

His father couldn't help but smile, "Yeah, you could, but then you wouldn't get to hear the rest of the story."

Mar took the cue and let his father continue, moving his shoulders in the sand to get comfortable.

"Far away, in the Alzoc system, there was a planet with families who worked hard and played and loved each other, and eventually they died, like everyone else. One day, on that planet, the dead decided to stop being dead, and started coming back. But they didn't come back looking like old friends and family, they came back as something else. The things that came back didn't really have a shape to 'em, they were just clouds of blue gas, full of little lightning storms where their guts should be."

The heater popped a couple times and Mar's face grew warmer as he sunk deeper into the story.

"This kept happening for years. Poof, and you could see 'em for just a second, and then someone was gone in a crack of lightning. Eventually they decided enough was enough, they couldn't lose anyone else to these cloud monsters. So a group of them got together, and they climbed up big, snowy mountains for days. I've told you about snow, right?"

"Yeah, it's like windy ice. They got a machine in Wayfar that makes it, I saw it one time."

"That's right, and it made the mountain climb very cold and much more dangerous. Some of them didn't make it. Eventually they made it back down with what they had been looking for."

"What was it," Mar asked.

"They were rocks dug out of the mountain top. The people took the rocks and turned them into a very special metal called "coldiron". They called it that 'cause no matter how long it was in the fire and glowing red, it was always cool to the touch. The coldiron was turned into swords, and they used the swords to cut through the evil clouds. Everyone the monsters took came back in the dark that night, and there was a big party across their whole planet. Nobody disappeared again."

Mar began to feel sleepy. The heater crackled once more and he turned to look. The popping grew in speed and volume and the warm glow exploded into a ring of monstrous flame. He gritted his teeth as the pilot seat nearly shook him to pieces. The canyon-split surface of Dreighton was approaching fast through the hole in the fire. What was left of his B-Wing broke through the atmosphere and the fire gave way to clouds and arid mountains.

Many kilometers above, his CO and old friend Gent Kirby was shouting at him through the radio. "Eject, kid!" Rookie One ripped away the yellow handle and the bullet-like cockpit freed itself from the wide, flat fuselage. The unmanned craft exploded against a massive stone spire, and the shockwave ran through him. At this speed, the ripples in the sand made him feel like he was coasting into an ocean. He heard a scream, and Commander Kirby's tag disappeared from the display, and Rookie One blacked out.

He awoke breathless, an impossible weight on his chest. Rocketing up from the reclined cabin chair, Mar nearly hit his head and the belts pulled him back. He gathered the strength to swallow. Then swallowed again. Then he breathed. The Alliance shuttle was empty save himself, two pilots, and a fighter technician. Years ago, Ru told him that he sometimes spoke during his nightmares. Fortunately, no one in the shuttle was looking at him, so maybe he hadn't said anything.

It was Mar's first trip off-world in two years, and he realized just how much he had missed space. He had idealized it during his drunken, self-imposed exile, and forgotten what it felt like to be so close to the emptiness. After being discharged the first time, Mar spent most of his time bouncing between Tatooine and a couple other systems to help extended family. Staying with them had been exactly what he needed, doing simple, good works for grateful people. He met cousins and nephews he didn't even know about, and taught more than one of them how to get an airspeeder off the ground. With little family of her own, Ru had tagged along, and his family had loved her almost as much as he did.

Weeks before their wedding, the Alliance came calling. Wraith Squadron needed "contractors", skilled pilots and saboteurs who could be brought on to assist in near-by missions on an as-needed basis. It wasn't unusual, many outfits did it, including Rogue Squadron. Mar and Ru both said "yes" with little hesitation, and Commander Murleen and Rookie One were back in the chair, dangerous and madly in love. It became the second-biggest regret of his life.

"Sir, we're here," the co-pilot said.

Through the porthole, Espira looked even drearier than it had on the holo, a ball of deep brown stone with a long chain of massive gray storms covering half of the surface. Just over the planet's crest, Mar spotted the edge of an asteroid field. From this distance, the rocks seemed to shimmer. The pilot guided them down through the edge of one of the storms, and interior lights struggled as powerful winds shook the shuttle's frame.

Beneath the clouds, the planet was nothing but extreme heights and nearly invisible lows. High-peaked canyons formed a web across the planet, hundreds of thousands of tiny rivers constantly running through the crevices below. The color and pattern of the massive stone walls reminded him of a dark, varnished wood.

The hangar was faceted into one of the more vertical cliff faces. Mar saw the last of the hangar door retract into the stone and noticed that they were the same color. He wondered just how close to enemy lines they really were. They touched down, the ramp lowered, and a beautiful young woman with dark skin, a loose-fitting flight suit, and a broad smile was waiting at the bottom.

"Commander Devlek?" she asked as he stepped down.

"Yeah."

She saluted with energy, and extended her hand before the gesture was returned. "Petty Officer Tola Lugarra, sir. We're really excited to have you here."

His brow rose. "When I was your age, we dreaded new CO's. What's wrong with you all?"

"Sir, you're by far the highest-ranking officer to step foot in this hangar."

"You're kidding," Mar grumbled.

"No, sir. Until now, it was Ely- I'm sorry, Ensign Elysar Morolis."

Tola's mood took a sudden, visible dip, but she remained positive. When Mar read in Tola's dossier that she was Tholothian, he had never expected her to be this upbeat.

He asked, "How is Ensign Morolis doing?"

"She was released from medical a couple days ago, sir."

"I know, I have the file. I have all of your files. I asked how she is doing."

"Ely," Tola began, but stopped, turning to look at a badly-damaged X-Wing in the far corner. Two men were using the hangar winch to carry away the remaining half of its upper starboard wing. She looked back to Mar. "I know Ely, sir. She is a survivor."

Mar nodded, then asked, "How bad do the storms get around here?"

"What you saw on your way in is pretty much it. We've had a couple lightning storms, but nothing that would ground us. Just lots and lots of rain."

"You don't sound like you're enjoying your stay."

"I'm more of an outdoors-type, sir. At least I'm pretty sure I am, it's been so long." She laughed, and Mar knew that Tola wasn't going to be his favorite person here.

A few seconds later, Tola realized that her new CO wasn't walking with her anymore. She spotted him closer to the hangar's center. Commander Devlek's hands were on his waist and he was staring at one of the squadron's X-Wings.

Tola approached and said, "That one is yours, sir. Actually, that reminds me..."

She retrieved a datapad from her waist and tapped at it. Mar ignored her, continuing to run his eyes over the fighter's sharp edges. The T-65 X-Wing was a platform that made good pilots great and turned great ones into heroes. He didn't really miss the people, but he had certainly missed the ships. A multi-limbed droid hovered over to Mar's X-Wing and pressed one of its arms against the craft's side, just below its canopy glass. A tiny black cloud puffed out around the droid's arm. It started to paint a tiny, crude TIE Fighters onto the hull.

"No," Mar said, "Shut that thing off. Don't do that."

"I'm sorry if the order or type of ship is wrong, sir. There were some pretty big gaps in your service record, so I had to guess."

"I don't give a damn about that, Ensign. I'm not going to cover my ship in bodies."

Tola was quiet, looking between Mar and his X-Wing. Mar noticed that another pilot and a couple technicians were looking their way. He hadn't meant to shout.

"I'm sorry, sir?" Tola offered.

Mar stalled by swallowing and stretching out his neck. "I said that I don't want a tally on my fighter. I used to do that, collecting them like toy ships. Not anymore, though, and you shouldn't either. In fact," He paused to look around at his impromptu audience. "First order as squadron commander: No kill tallies." Mar gestured at the floating droid. "Get them off any fighter that has them." As the droid hovered away with its task, he said to Tola, "If they're so worried about forgetting the people they've killed, they can get a charm bracelet."


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4

Commander Mar Devlek nearly flinched at the shrill whistle from behind. Tuck, a cone-topped astromech droid nestled behind the cockpit, wailed about a target lock. Mar put his X-Wing into a slow downward arc and two lances of glowing red shot past overhead, mere meters from the canopy. The blasts seemed close enough to warm his face. The arc ended with a twist, and Mar could see the underside of the other X-Wing above his own.

His pursuer followed, but didn't slow for the turn, and ended up nearly overtaking Mar at the end. The veteran pilot shook his head and banked port before the fighter behind could re-establish lock. While the X-Wing wasn't the fastest or best-armed thing in the Alliance fleet, it always did exactly what the pilot said. A few minutes in the iconic fighter could tell you everything you needed to know about a pilot, and right now, the kid on Mar's tail was embarrassing the hell out of himself.

The X-wing stayed on his tail, though it slowed to get more distance between itself and Mar. Tuck began to beep a steady rhythm as they settled into the young pilot's crosshairs. Mar rolled and cut starboard just as the next volley came his way, and the blasts cut through the afterglow of his thrusters. He was sideways relative to his attacker, and Mar imagined he could see the pilot, a young, wide-eyed Nautolan, shaking the tentacles at the back of his head in confusion.

Tuck quieted. No more target lock. Mar looked to his radar and saw his attacker breaking off and starting a very wide turn. _Fine then_ , the veteran mused, _let's try something different._

Mar said, "Tuck, let's go to rocks, level three."

The droid's high-pitched objections came out as translated text on Mar's screen.

"I don't care, turn them on," the pilot said.

A field of enormous blue orbs appeared just ahead. The spheres flickered and shifted, needing only a second to become convincing asteroids. One of the larger rocks began to fill his view, and he smirked. Mothma had been absolutely right, though he would never admit it. Mar cut the engines and dipped under the asteroid. Tuck wailed again as he was nearly scalped by the boulder.

He wove between a handful of small rocks and used a small gap to push the engines. Mar widened the gap between the two X-Wings, meaning his attacker would be forced to follow him deeper into the rocky chaos. A more experienced pilot would find a clearer path in the same direction Mar was heading, keeping an eye on him until finding an opening and striking. The Commander watched the little red dot fly straight into the asteroid field.

Mar's path was erratic, defined by the enormous rocks that surrounded them. The field had grown more dense, and he had been forced to throttle down to cruising speed. He hooked starboard and checked his radar. The other fighter was closely following Mar's turns. "He thinks this is weaving for weaving's sake," Mar muttered, "He's having too much fun."

Looking for an opening, the Commander rolled and spotted one, twisting as he slipped out of the field. Mar kept close enough to the rocks to appear like he was still among them on radar. The young pursuer arrived at the point where Mar had dipped out, and was now forced to slow down even further and find his own path.

Mar watched the other fighter light up in blue as its shielded underside caught the edge of an asteroid. It was a light graze, but it was enough to make the young pilot realize his mistake. Now he too began to look for an escape from the rocks, but when he found one, it was quickly filled by the nose and guns of a quickly-approaching X-Wing. Commander Devlek didn't wait for the lock signal from Tuck before opening fire. The four cannons fired in sequence, and a nearly uninterrupted stream of blasts ripped through the smaller rocks around the trapped fighter. The first flurry cleared the target, and the second tore away its shields in a burst of blue fire. Swearing filled Mar's radio as the final red spears shredded his pursuer's cockpit and fuselage, and the X-Wing between the Commander's crosshairs disappeared in a hot ball of orange and yellow.

The fire disappeared, then the asteroids, then the stars themselves gave way to matte black. The simulator's cockpit seal released with a hiss, and Mar began to climb down from the machine. A quiet, unpleasant sound came from Tuck. The droid was being lowered down by a crane and wasn't happy about it.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Mar's gloves were hardly off when he heard the request. He turned to see the pilot he had just blown away: a young, blue-skinned Nautolan named Takan Leen. Mar figured the rookie must have ran in order to get here from the other simulator so quickly.

"Granted, Petty Officer Leen."

"Sir, with respect, I don't think that fight was that fair."

"I don't either, but you're the one who asked to go with me."

Mar caught a flash of anger in Takan's eyes. He had known the young pilot for two days, but was already convinced that he was going to be dead inside two weeks. Takan had that same unwarranted cockiness that drove so many of the Rebellion's early aces, and ended up killing most of them.

Takan said, "That's not what I mean, sir. That sim was running old software. It normally uses the updated info, including Incom's new flight control system."

Mar lifted away his helmet and shook his hair away. "Do any of our fighters have that new flight control system?"

"No, sir, they don't, but-"

The Commander interrupted, "Then why are you fighting a war with weapons you don't have?"

Before the Petty Officer could produce a comeback, Mar turned away and headed for the mess. He could hear Takan cursing under his breath, and was glad to see the young man showing some fire. The Nautolan was close friends with Ensign Dane Rumol, the Twi'lek still hanging onto life in the tiny medical ward. There was an undercurrent of tension, a high-tension wire run the length of the base, that Mar knew hadn't been there before the Phantom attack. Grief would do them no good, but anger might, and their CO knew it.

Petty Officer Lugarra grabbed Mar's attention before he could escape into the base's corridors. She was kneeling next to Tuck, working away at some circuitry beneath an open panel on the droid's barrel torso. It bleeped morosely as he approached.

Lugarra asked, "So, sir, did you and little Tuck here hit it off?"

"Not even remotely, Tola. Do we have any others ready for combat?"

She smiled at his use of her first name. The little droid let off another series of tones, and Mar looked to a near-by diagnostic screen for the translation. He started to say something, stopped himself.

"I almost swore back at a droid," Mar mumbled.

She laughed, "Yeah, he's been like that since the attack. If we wiped him, there's a chance we'd fry his boards, so he is what he is. And no, sir, there aren't any other astromechs available."

The Commander sighed and squeezed past a frustrated technician on his way out of the hangar. Espira Outpost was smaller than most Alliance bases, and it had an equally-small staff. Mon Mothma had been abusing the word "garrison" when referring to the non-pilot staff, which numbered a couple dozen. The outpost's mess was in scale with the rest of the operation, and doubled as the base's rec room.

Mar opened the door to the mess and was blasted with red light. He had forgotten two things: the fact that some of the techs liked to treat the small room like a night club, and the current time. The ceiling speakers had been wired to a third-party music player in violation of countless regulations, but no one wanted to be the pilot whose X-Wing just wouldn't start because they complained that the mess was too fun.

Fighting his way through the pounding bass of the awful new music, Mar asked for a large glass of ice, just ice. He ignored the questioning look from the techie behind the makeshift bar and left with his ice towards his quarters. Only half of the base's interior was reinforced with duracrete, the rest naked stone worn smooth.

Moisture tended to build on the stone surfaces, and Mar reached up and wiped a fingertip's worth of dew from the ceiling, nearly bumping into someone in the process. It was Ensign Elysar Morolis, the other victim of the attack, and the only pilot he had yet to speak with. She had been occupying herself in her quarters and the outpost's pathetic gym. From the sweat dripping from her short-cut brown hair, Mar assumed that was where she had just left.

Mar said, "Ensign Morolis."

"Sir," she said and saluted, and that was it. There was no disrespect, but it was clear she had no interest in talking. Mar wasn't all that interested in stopping to chat either, but he was already in a poor mood and her demeanor had put off.

"Ensign," he said, "We haven't had any time to talk. I know you already tried to file a report on the attack, but I need it."

"I can't right now, sir. Give me a couple more days, and I'll have a full report on your terminal."

"What's the delay?"

"Sir, I..." she began, and several drops of sweat hit floor before she continued, "I don't think I'm ready to talk it about quite yet."

The CO mustered up the most snide, dismissive look that he could. "In your own time, then, Ensign," he said and stepped around her.

Mar made it only a couple meters before Elysar shouted "Sir!" at his back. Her voice ricocheed violently down the hewn corridor. He turned back towards her as she jogged his way.

"Yes, Ensign?"

Elysar rose her chin and stood rigid. "Sir, do you have a moment for my report?"

The Commander looked down at his glass of melting ice and realized that he had just screwed himself out of a brief rest. Then he realized that he hadn't.

"I think I do. Follow me to my quarters."

They spoke as they walked. Elysar answered his questions simply, briefly, offering only what he asked for. Mar's quarters were a fraction the size of his house on Naboo. The walls were the same lifeless gray as the hangar, and left just room enough for a desk, a bunk, a couple chairs and a small table, and some drawers buried in the wall. His first night here had been his best night sleep in years.

Mar asked Elysar to have a seat as he reached under his desk and retrieved a bottle. He just managed to catch the last frames of the Ensign's eye-roll as he put some of the ice into a smaller glass and started to pour.

He mused, "Go on, Ensign, say it."

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"I'm not dumb, Elysar. Say what you want to say."

"With all due respect, sir, our previous CO didn't engage in that..."

"Cliche?" Mar finished.

"Yes sir. He felt it was disrespectful to his subordinates."

He held up the drink. "I agree with your old CO, which is why this one's yours."

She rose and accepted the drink with a mix of confusion and suspicion. Mar poured himself some of the whiskey and sat at his desk. He had to admit that Elysar was an attractive young woman, lean and fierce. Mar could see himself making a pass at her if he was ten years younger. Though, ten years ago, he had Ru.

After a few sips, Mar said, "You know, until forty-eight hours ago, no one had ever said "with all due respect" to me. It just happened twice in one day, and I've realized there's no way to make it not sound disrespectful."

Elysar looked to her CO to see if he was serious. A tight smirk showed that he wasn't, and she snorted softly.

"They're scary as hell, aren't they Ensign?" Mar asked.

"What are, sir?"

"The fighters that jumped you guys. Three wings, right?"

The young pilot fought hard to retain her composure, but succeeded.

"Yes sir, they were shaped like, ah, claws." She paused to take a long sip. "They came out of nowhere."

Mar exhaled loudly and laid back in his chair, looking up. "Yeah, Phantoms do that."

Those words were the final cracks in the dam, and Elysar nearly dropped her glass. She looked over herself, as though checking to make sure her limbs were still there, then stared at her CO, but waited to say, "What did you call them?"

"TIE Phantoms. They're what shot you down."

"I thought I was going crazy. After the attack I looked and looked, but there wasn't anything like them in the Alliance database."

"There wouldn't be, Mothma made sure of that."

"I'm sorry, sir, Chief Mothma?"

Mar left the question unanswered and finished his glass. He had to force himself to remember the massive gap between what he knew of the ex-Chief of State, and what everyone else knew.

"Elysar, you and Dane have joined a pretty exclusive club."

"Sir, if this is going where I think it is, I don't have classified clearance."

"You do now. Actually, everyone in the squadron does."

Again, surprise had got the better of Ely. "Why?"

Mar smiled humorlessly. "Because if we're going to hunt these things down, you guys need to know about them."

Ely's drink exploded across the hard floor. "Sir, we're going to find these things and kill them? Do we even know _how_ to kill them?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Because I have." Mar finished his drink. "And so has someone else, and you remind me a lot of her."

He looked at Ensign Elysar Morolis, and he saw the smoldering potential that could burn a hole through a Star Destroyer. It was the fire that had brought Mon Mothma back into the game, but raw, unprocessed, buried beneath a fresh layer of misplaced fear.

Mar asked, "Have all of you been this scared since the attack?"

Elysar's mouth warped in frustration, "Yes sir."

Commander Devlek stood, nearly breaking his own glass as he put it down. "Ensign, come with me."

Elysar followed her CO out of the cramped quarters. He moved with purposeful strides. They approached two of the newest pilots in the hall. The rookies saw Mar's determined look and started to move out of his way, but he signaled for them to follow as well. He stopped in the open doorway of the mess, red light cutting a silhouette around him.

Mar shouted at the bartender to cut off the music. A quick look in the officer's eyes and the sound died.

"Pilots, in the hangar," he shouted, and resumed his quick march, a line of confusion and murmur in his wake. They gathered naturally in a fragmented circle around Mar's X-Wing. He spotted Tola and gestured for her datapad. The voices ebbed out, and all eyes fell on their new CO.

"You don't know me. That's going to change over time. What's going to change _right now_ is this: we're not going to be scared anymore. They came out of nowhere, and they hurt you. Fourteen years ago, they hurt me and my friends too. Guess what we did?"

Mar tapped at the the datapad, and the little hovering droid floated over to the X-Wing and began to spray black into its fuselage. It produced a small silhouette of a ship like a black, angular claw. Elysar recognized it immediately as the ship that had nearly killed her: a TIE Phantom. Then the droid painted another. And another.

"We tracked them down, and we hurt them back. Get some rest, Coldiron Squadron, we're going hunting tomorrow."


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5

Anticipation filled the hangar as a chorus of whining turbines grew in volume. Three X-Wings were preparing to run the newly-christened Coldiron Squadron's first mission. Despite their best efforts to appear apathetic, most of the small outpost's population was on-hand. Mar's theatrics yesterday had helped their collective nerves somewhat, but uncertainty was beginning to creep in. Some were dealing with it better than others.

After an embarrassing loss to his commanding officer in the simulators, Takan had spent another three hours in the machine. Mar was proud of the rookie, and respected him enough to not say anything. The Commander's other wingman would be Ensign Morolis. He wanted Ely in the air as quickly as possible, not giving her time to simmer in bad memories. The young woman had three confirmed kills, more than anyone else in the squadron, excluding Mar. It was still unclear to him why Ely hadn't been squad leader prior to his arrival.

Like most of the pilots on the outpost, Takan was still green, without a single kill to his name. The Nautolian had impressed his instructors during training, so Mar assumed Takan was here as a test for something bigger in the near future. The Commander just wasn't picking up on whatever raw talent the brass had seen in him.

Mar wanted to be there when Takan downed his first target, just as Ru had done for him. When Commander Devlek was still just "Rookie One", his first kill had brought conflicting emotions in enormous, crashing waves. There wasn't time for him to appreciate what had happened, because it was quickly followed by so many more. Ru had led Mar and another rookie pilot straight up the nose of the Star Destroyer leading an assault on Tatooine's small Rebel outpost. Three fighters against an iconic Imperial battleship, one of those enormous daggers that split the skies and glassed continents. After surviving an unending swarm of enemy fighters and the iridescent rain from the destroyer's guns, Mar had put a volley of shots straight into the command tower.

A combat-ready Imperial II-class Star Destroyer has a crew of approximately thirty-seven thousand people. Mar had brought down the craft with three pulls of his finger. Even divided up amongst the three Rebel pilots, the ratio of death was staggering to him. As the battle shifted to the planet's surface, young Mar took long looks at the many downed TIE Fighters, and the slack bodies that spilled from their cracked hulls. The lifeless Star Destroyer never surrendered to Tatooine's gravity, and the Rebels were forced to retreat from the system, allowing Rookie One to report that it was unclear what had killed the massive warship. The silent responsibility nearly choked him. Ru had been there with his next breath and a calming dose of perspective.

Back in the present, a low, metallic rumble shook the hangar as gears turned and drew away the heavy slab that separated them from a long drop. The opaque force field remained in place, filling with glowing red ripples as it was pelted with rain. Tuck beeped his displeasure at the weather, but Mar continued the ignition sequence. Ely and Takan were each silently struggling, and the radio had remained unusually silent. Mar thought he was going to enjoy the moment when his pilots kept their mouths shut like proper airmen, but it was unnerving.

The Commander raised his voice into his helmet's microphone, "This is Gray Leader, check-in."

Ely's voice came over the radio, "Gray Two, standing-by."

Mar waited as long as he could before stating, "Gray Four, status?"

A quiet swear slipped through channel, followed by Takan's scrambling, "Gray Four, standing-by."

Mar said nothing, anything more would have only made Takan's world an even more complicated place. He kicked in the repulsorlifts and his fighter shook itself free from the hangar floor. Landing gear disappeared into itself and Commander Devlek became a free-floating object. His wingmen followed suit, and they filed through the rose shield, trailing bits of the woven energy off their thrusters.

Tuck was insistent about the rain, and Mar was insistent about not caring. They were flying up into the rain, turning the falling drops into a field of dots stretching past on all sides like a hyperspace jump. Fire erupted at the X-Wing's nose and quickly spread across Mar's entire field of view. He pushed the thrusters a bit, hoping to get through the atmosphere as quickly as possible. His wingmen were a moment late in noticing what their Commander did, but matched the burst of speed.

The flames gave way to a dark sea broken by white pinholes and awash with orange rays from the enormous star off his port. He took a deep breath from a limited supply and lost himself to space supreme, and figured that this must be how Jedi felt all the time. The line of fighters spread into a rough triangle. A gentle curve starboard brought the asteroid field into view. The frozen rocks stretched all the way around their star, but there were thick breaks in the clouds of stone, enough that the ring could be treated as many individual clusters. Today they were scoping out the cluster nearest Espira.

Mar was silently dreading this mission. The asteroid in the system gave off unusually large ambipolar fields, occasionally erupting into electromagnetic storms. The resulting lighting was impressive, but mostly harmless to their ships. What bothered Mar was the havoc such a storm could play with things like radar and comms. With the field so large, and their ships so small, it was unlikely that they would be caught in a storm very often. Still, the concern remained planted at the edge of Mar's thoughts.

They neared the cluster, and as always, the asteroids were much larger than they first appeared. It was protocol to do another sound-off after breaking atmo, a protocol that often went ignored, but Mar found it a good excuse to check on Takan.

"This is Gray Leader, check-in."

"Gray Two, standing-by."

"Gray Four, standing-by."

Immediate and confident. The confidence was probably a cover, but Mar was a firm believer in faking-it-'till-you-made-it.

Mar said, "Alright, this should be a blue milk run. Two loops, one around, one overtop, altogether it shouldn't take more than two hours. Keep an eye on your monitors, and be ready to go quiet at my signal."

Takan's voice came over the radio. "Quick question, Gray Leader."

"Is it mission critical, Gray Four?"

"No, sir."

"Then it's going to have to wait."

"Copy, Gray Leader."

The three X-Wings began a path around the left side of the asteroid cluster, but when one was this close to a field of the giant porous stones, it looked pretty much the same from any side. Mar had heard more than one story of small, one-man craft losing their instruments and becoming hopelessly lost in larger asteroid fields. They were going to be on patrol for a while, and after only a few minutes, Commander Devlek relented.

"What was your question, Gray Four?"

Takan didn't miss a beat. "Why "Gray"? Why not Republic-standard "Red"?"

Mar could hear Ely sigh through the comm unit. The question was even less mission-critical than he expected, but the young Nautolian was clearly trying to cover his uneasiness with snark, so the CO indulged him.

"If we used "Red", you all would think you're Luke Skywalker and get yourselves killed."

There was a long pause as he realized that the joke didn't really come-off as such. It had been a long time since he had tried to make anyone laugh.

Ely's dry tone broke the quiet, "For those listening in on this frequency, that doesn't mean that one of us isn't Luke Skywalker."

Mar chuckled softly. It was nice to hear the young woman still had a sense of humor, po-faced as it was.

No more chatter came across the radio. Often, young pilots hear their CO make one casual comment and take it as the green light to fill the channel with noise. Mar was thrilled that Ely and Takan seemingly learned the balance.

A standard hour passed, and while his romance with space was still burning bright, the growing boredom was difficult to ignore. If he was back home on Naboo, he would just head home for a drink or four and something mindless on the holo. A long absence from the military life had left him without patience. Mar had held off examining the X-Wing's interior until his boredom had grown truly desperate, but it seemed like that moment had already come.

Then Tuck whistled, and the Commander looked to his radar. The signature of a small craft had appeared at the edge of his scanners. His mind instantly began to race. If it was a standard TIE Fighter, its scanners hadn't noticed them yet, thanks to very Imperial budget choices. Mar had to remind himself that it was a long time since he had encountered a TIE, and whatever Moff-turned-Warlord that might be operating in this area might have smarter priorities.

Mar pressed a button, giving Ely and Takan a silent signal to go dark. Non-essential functions were shut off and they eased back their thrusters, reducing their heat signature. He led them closer to one of the larger asteroids, hoping it would reduce their digital signature even further. The blip on the radar became two blips, then the two blips became four. They were in a square formation, standard Imperial procedure for a scouting party. There was little doubt in his mind that the signatures were TIEs. Mar fed this information to Tuck, who sent it in quick, direct bursts to the monitors of his wingmen.

There was an even chance that the flight of Imperials was all TIE Fighters, or a mix of Fighters and Interceptors. The prong-winged Interceptors were uncommon in scouting parties, but not unheard-of. The red points became identifiable signatures, and his fears were confirmed: the rear two ships were the TIE Fighter's deadlier cousins. There's no way they haven't picked us up by now, Mar solemnly admitted. This might become a trial-by-fire for those two.

The Commander pressed that familiar old button, and his fighter's wings split into that titular shape, locking into place with a soft thud. Ely and Takan did the same, and all three of them continued a very slow lap around the rock, watching their radars with mixed emotions. The blips maintained their course through one of the few consistent paths in the boulders. The window of surprise was closing quickly. Mar led them up and above the shielding stone. They broke the asteroid's relative horizon, and the TIEs came into view.

He designated the two Interceptors as targets, which was relayed to his squadmates' displays. Those were now his responsibility. Each of the remaining ball fighters became the designated target of one of his wingmen. Proton torpedoes were armed. Mar filled his lungs and held for a three-count. A slow beeping pattern became quick, became a steady tone. One word appeared on Ely and Takan's screens: Fire.

Six balls of white heat trailed thick flames as they erupted from the X-Wings. The TIEs had apparently noticed the Republic fighters the moment of target lock and scrambled away from one-another. The torpedoes gave chase, and Coldiron Squadron's thrusters burned bright as throttles were slammed forward. The Interceptors broke high, but one was a fraction quicker than his partner, who was struck just below the cockpit by one of Mar's torpedoes. The explosion disappeared as quickly as it formed, leaving a single wing, warped and burned. Mar winced, but was thankful, knowing he would have to keep the quicker fighters corralled and away from Ely and Takan. He let off a few sets of far-led shots at his remaining target, but they hit nothing but space and rock. The opening allowed him to push forward at near top-speed for a few seconds, and the Interceptor was almost in zero-range.

Ensign Morolis went after her target with similar speed, and the TIE Fighter turned toward one of the thicker portions of the cluster. The targeting computer was still doing whatever it did before it was ready, but she put a few shots in the TIE's direction regardless. One of the blasts exploded a small asteroid into even smaller bits, and a few of the chunks tore through the Fighter's starboard wing, but the pilot maintained control.

She continued to push her engines, and didn't cut them back until she was passing through the rocky hail of her own creation. Ely fired and the Imperial pilot in her crosshairs juked right, but there wasn't enough room, and the glowing lances ripped away most of the Fighter's port wing. Her prey fought his own craft for control, and his movements became loose and exaggerated. Ely was forced port as an icy rock drifted between the two of them. Her trigger fluttered the moment she was clear of the asteroid, but it was premature, and she murdered more stone. Rushing to close the gap before more interference came through, her astromech sung a target lock and she fired. Fire filled her crosshairs and the torched Fighter parts bent and broke against the surrounding stone.

After a stray asteroid caught Takan's torpedoes, his designated target sped along its original course, the Imperial clearly hoping that his wingmates would distract the attackers. The Nautolian's head tentacles stiffened as he gave pursuit. What had been a clear path through the field was now starting to collapse into disarray as the rocks shifted to the tune of the many near-by explosions. The TIE dropped under an asteroid and Takan followed suit, sending a few lasers just behind the Imperial's ion trail. His target slalomed between rocks, always a couple meters ahead of Takan's shots.

The Fighter waited longer than Takan expected before cutting up and around the next obstacle. The Republic pilot nearly shattered his teeth as he rolled hard and hauled back his throttle, the X-Wing's belly just missing rocky surface. Clear of the asteroid, he increased speed once more, only to find that the nimble little Imperial fighter had looped around one of the smaller rocks and was almost facing him. Takan heard the chilling tone of an enemy target lock and rolled again, dipping away. Emerald lasers burned colored lines in his vision and he shouted as an umbrella of blue lightning cascaded down his wings. His shields were nearly gone.

Mar had to admit that his remaining Imperial friend had some moves. Weaving up and left and down, swerving, and even risking the half-second to fake a turn before banking the other way, Commander Devlek kept the pulsing red ion engines always near his crosshairs, but never quite centered. That sound. Much had been said about the TIE's signature hellscream, but for some reason he couldn't piece together, part of Mar liked the sound. Then he saw it, the mistake, the lock, and the final Interceptor was flame and debris.

The Commander looked to his radar and saw that not only was Takan's TIE still flying, it had Gray

Four on the run. He hurried in his young wingmate's direction, but the asteroids fell and rose and he couldn't break half-speed.

Mar shouted into the comm, "Gray Four, break port and head for open space!"

"Wil-damnit!" Takan's voice dipped in volume as he shifted in the seat, a useless reflex to the enemy fire that passed his canopy. "Wilco!"

Between a skilled look from Mar and an increasingly-dense radar image, he was almost certain he wasn't going to reach Takan in time. One of the smaller asteroids drifted into his path. He blasted the rock apart and threw all shields forward, bursting through the rubble. His heel tapped furiously against the cockpit floor. Another drifting obstacle split into pieces to allow Gray Leader to slip through, his shields crackling at the stray contacts.

There was one more asteroid looming between Takan and clear space, but he continued to press the throttle bar until it hit metal and focused his burning fear into one great tug at the stick. Metal screamed and torqued as he found the X-Wing's structural limits. Takan's monitor blossomed red and filled with stacking warnings. Black and stars filled his view, and he was free of the rocky chaos. He nearly choked as his scream became laughter. The tone returned, and his heart froze. Just behind, the TIE had made it out as well.

Then came Ely's voice, steady as the rock that passed beneath her, "Gray Two, moving to assist."

She had lock, and fired again and again. The stream of red started slow and traced its way up through the TIE, and the shredded fighter spiraled away before painting the black backdrop with stirring reds and yellows.

Mar's exhausted laughter was airy and nearly silent. He gave them a few moments to breathe before saying, "Gray Squadron, regroup at Point Alpha, we're heading home. Well done."

Tuck's relief sounded even fuller than his pilot's, but he was quick to remind Mar that one of the TIEs had sent a transmission further in-system before being destroyed.

"Was the message long enough to give us away?"

Tuck was unsure.


	6. Chapter 6

Part 6

Ely's quarters reflected her tastes, simple, pragmatic. An old music recording came from a tiny player on the shelf above her bunk. Acoustic strumming in contemplative tones bounced around the moist stone walls. Half of the quarters at the Espira outpost were lined in the standard duracrete, but the rest, like Ely's, were personal caves of smooth, exposed rock. She preferred the natural walls, their marbled chocolate hues reminded her of home. The walls served as decoration enough, the only other personal affects in the room being a handful of frameless pictures on the shelf, and a long flute propped up in the corner.

The flute had belonged to her sister. Ely had no idea how to play it, and no desire to learn. She would give anything to hear the magic her sister used to produce with the instrument, and whatever noise Ely might make with it would just cheapen the whole thing.

The young pilot couldn't stand downtime. When the fighters were in the hangar and the simulators were powered down, Ely didn't know what to do with herself. Even before that first attack, the base's few distractions had never appealed to her. She dropped onto the bunk, her short, uneven bangs bouncing softly in the humid air. Memories forced their way in, as they always did. Talons of ghostly blue, reaching out at her tail with nuclear green ferocity. Commander Tredle's scream burst through the past and echoed within her head. Ely didn't know Tredle very well before the Phantoms took him.

"Phantoms," she mumbled the word. The New Republic's navy was very inclusive, recruiting Humans and Mon Cals and Sullustans, really anything with eyes to see Imperials and hands to kill them. Ely had spent most of her career bouncing between outposts, good enough to draw the attention of many an officer, but never quite good enough to claim a squadron as her own. With all of her time spent being reassigned across Republic space, she never expected anything to surprise her anymore. Ely had never expected to fight ghost ships.

They aren't ghosts, she forced herself to remember. Closing her eyes, nodding resolutely, Ely forced the amorphous mental images into focus. They weren't angry, mystical beings. The Phantom TIES were just that: TIEs, fighters just like her X-Wing, flown by people just like herself. They were just as killable as she was, as her new CO had made clear in dramatic fashion. Elysar held the image of the sharp-winged Imperial craft in her mind's eye, grasping it tightly, rotating it slowly like a small model. It had to be real, tangible, or the shadows would return.

Ely's grasp was loosening, and the image of the ship began to shimmer and fade. She sneered at the ceiling. This was a battle she had fought many times in a few short weeks, and she had lost every time, and the Republic pilot knew that she was going to lose again. A buzz at door pierced the encroaching shadows. For some reason, she expected Mar. The heavy door rose into the mountain to reveal a different member of Coldiron Squadron.

"Hello, Takan."

The blue-skinned Nautolan began to step into the small quarters before returning her greeting, but Ely's body language kept him in the hall. The young man's richly black eyes were half-covered by heavy lids, and he listed ever-so-slightly on his feet. She could smell the faint scent of Lum escaping between his sharp teeth.

"What's going on, Ely?" he asked, smiling and removing all doubt of his drunkenness.

"Nothing much, just killing time."

"Yeah?" he asked, as if it were a real question. Elysar nodded, allowing him to continue. "I haven't seen you at the mess lately."

"I usually take my food and eat in here."

Her response didn't seem to register, it wasn't relevant to whatever point he had come here to make.

"You should grab a few drinks with the rest of the guys. We were just telling stories."

"Any of them true?"

Takan fumbled out a laugh at what he thought might be a joke, though he apparently didn't get it if it was.

Ely went on, "I'm not much of a drinker, you know that."

"Is there anything you are much of?"

She narrowed her eyes, "Excuse me, Petty Officer?"

The Nautolan shook his head and tried to open his eyes fully, but those lids were just so heavy. "No," he muttered, shaking his head, "That's not what I- You know, I just mean you don't do anything around here. Not even a little dejarik. It's just weird."

"How I spend my time outside the cockpit is not your business, and I think it might be best if you went back to your drinking buddies."

Taken took another shot at slipping past Ely, but a firm hand against his chest told him otherwise. Their eyes locked for a moment, and while Elysar wasn't an expert in his waterborne race, disdain was nearly universal through the haze of liquor. Forty-eight hours ago, she had saved Takan's life, so she was at a loss for a reason why he would be mad at her.

"Come on," he slurred, waving her out of the doorway. "You wouldn't want the guys thinking you think you're better than us."

Elysar's words were unstoppable blocks of solid steel forcing their way through empty space. "I am better than _you_ , Petty Officer Leen." Takan flinched at the verbal pushback, and Ely stepped forward. "I know I'm better than you because you had one job, a single mouthbreathing buckethead, and you made a meal of it. The poor bastards don't even have shields, and it still almost plastered you across the those rocks."

Takan stared agape at Ely, then looked both ways down the hall, as if searching for back-up. He had come alone, and it was dawning on him what a mistake he had made. Now was his time to eject, and Elysar hoped that he did. She had no desire to tear apart this young pilot, but the booze had dragged him well out of his place, and it fallen to her to put him back in it, should he choose.

"Yeah, well," the Nautolan began, ignoring the screaming eject alarm. "Maybe you're good, maybe you're lucky, I dunno." He rose a threatening finger. "But don't think you're better than Dane, and don't try to "help" me anymore, I don't want it."

There it was, she thought. This was about Dane Rumol. The twi'lek was the second-highest ranking pilot on the outpost before the Phantom attack, and the most decorated survivor after their Commander was killed. That morning, they had received word that Dane had come out of his coma, though was still unconscious, and it was unclear if he would regain full brain function. Elysar assumed that this was Takan's way of grieving. She understood where he was coming from, but now was not the time to grieve. With the new ace at the front of the flight, it was time to strike back, and she didn't know how much longer they could wait for Takan.

Ely said, "Well that's something you're going to have to deal with, Takan, because no matter what you think of me, you are part of my flight, so you're going to keep getting my "help" until I can't carry your ass any further, or you decide to start carrying it yourself."

The intoxicated pilot mouthed silent, unintelligible words, searching for a suitable comeback that didn't exist.

"Is that all, Petty Officer?"

Apparently it was, and Takan slinked away toward the mess. She watched him go, making sure he didn't finally put together that elusive riposte and return to her quarters. When he was out of sight, she remained in the hall, staring at the far wall, and allowed her mind to drift. The shadows hadn't abated, but were merely stalled by Takan's interruption. She could feel them, crackling slowly up the tendons in her back like black vines. Once more, she tried to take the looming panic and ball it up, shaping it into one of the ghostly Imperial fighters, but all of her strength couldn't stop them. The fingers of her left hand began to twitch. She shoved the unresponsive limb into her pocket, and her fingers danced against her thigh.

Ely torqued her jaw and backed into her quarters. She would be damned before any of the other pilots saw her like this. Dane had been at the outpost more than long enough to become part of the family, and so his wounds reverberated throughout the base. Ely had no illusions about sharing any sort of similar connection with the other pilots. The panic began to crawl up her arm. She had to find a way to make the shadows physical again, so she stepped quickly towards the medical ward.

Duracrete walls gave way to metal, and the moisture lifted away the closer she got to medical. Inside the tiny, makeshift hospital, she was greeted by the attending 2-1B medical droid, a gunmetal gray skeleton with a translucent stomach and tubes woven throughout. She nodded back, her eyes focusing on the green-skinned man in the skinny bed.

This was the first time she had seen him since watching him being hovered away on a gurney. His face was much paler than she remembered, closer to morning tuergrass than the deeper swampy green she was used to. His thick, fleshy headtails faded even further along their length, and were practically white at their tips. The ends seemed to twitch every other second.

Ely spoke to the medical droid, though her sight remained on her wounded wingmate. "His lekku are twitching. Is that a good thing?"

The droid's words were softened with a more human, compassionate tone, but it didn't hide the metallic twang of its voice synthesizer. "Possibly. It could be a sign of returning brain function, but they are more likely aberrant spasms."

"Why isn't he in the tank?" She asked, in reference to the enormous cylinder of ice-blue bacta in the corner.

"The patient has reached the limit of bacta's usefulness. It is now up to his mind to heal itself."

She nodded. Dane's eyes were closed, his lips dry and cracking and slightly parted. The approaching anxiety had been forced back by the ionizing reality before her, but the sadness wasn't much better.

"Is there a chance he's dreaming?"

The droid's unwavering tone was starting to irritate her. "I would not know, sir. My most recent firmware is unclear on the subject, though there has been significant debate in the medical community-"

"Thanks", Ely cut off the droid.

It took a long look for her to realize that Dane's chest was moving the white blanket up and down. They were very shallow breaths, but better than the alternative. She didn't realize someone else had entered the medical ward until they politely cleared their throat. Ely turned to see Commander Devlek. He paused for a second, a polite gesture, giving Ely just enough time to ask her CO to leave if he was intruding, but she didn't protest.

"Hello, Commander."

"How's he doing?" Mar asked, gesturing to the unconscious twi'lek.

"Well, he's out of the coma, but they're worried about brain damage."

Mar nodded and pulled over two chairs, sitting in one and sliding the other over to Ely. She sat as well, though it was clear she was more comfortable standing. They watched the sleeping patient in silence for several minutes, broken only by the infrequent beeps and tones from the machines hooked up to the pilot.

Finally, Ely said, "So you're still convinced we can kill the things that did this?"

Mar's tone was soft, matter-of-fact. "I've done it before, and there were only two of us then. With a whole squadron, I think the odds are in our favor."

"How many did you two bring down?"

"I don't like to count bodies."

"No offense, sir, but what is on the side of your X-Wing then?"

Mar snorted. "You know what that was for, but point taken. I honestly don't know how many Ru and I destroyed. Between the factory and the command ship docked at the time, it was probably somewhere between three- and four-hundred-thousand souls and tens of thousands of ships."

Quiet filled the room once more. The number was beyond staggering, and Ely was having difficulty wrapping her head around it.

She said, "Wait, command ship? A Super Star Destroyer?"

He nodded solemnly. "The Terror. The Imps really have a knack for names."

"Aren't you proud of what you've done, I mean, even a little bit?"

Commander Devlek took a deep breath, rocking back and forth in the uncomfortable chair for a moment, but saying, "I have a nephew named Poe, my sister's son. Brilliant kid. One day he's going to be one of the best pilots in the galaxy. When I was discharged, I spent as much time as possible with him. It wasn't about dogfights or tactics, we didn't talk about landing during incoming fire. He's just a kid that wants to fly. Every little detail about flying, the stuff you and I take for granted? He drools over it. He cheers every time the landing gear works. The number of lives we saved might be six-digits, but I've never felt prouder than when I helped Poe take off in my old T-16 for the first time. The look on his face..."

Mar took another pause and looked to the display showing Dane's vitals.

"This war's done awful things to a lot of good people, and when I look at my little nephew, all I see is another twenty years of the same hell I went through. Sometimes, I want to just grab him and tell him to be a doctor, be a bartender, be a Holostar, be anything that won't put him in the cockpit one more second."

Ely's CO turned to meet her gaze and said, "We have to end this war as soon as possible, for him, for all them."

A new tone sounded, this one from Ely's waist. She reached for the comm unit in her pocket and realized that her hand had calmed.

She spoke into the comm, "Morolis here. Go ahead."

The voice of one of the hangar techs crackled out of the tiny speaker. _"Sir, we restored your droid's memory. You really need to see what's on here, it doesn't make any sense."_

Mar gestured for the comm, and Ely handed it to him. "This is Commander Devlek, we're on the way."


	7. Chapter 7

Part 7

Retton Helerask had never felt pride like this. At just nineteen-years-old, he had earned a very exclusive position within Sigma Squadron. Under the bulbous onyx helmet, the young man was beaming. The helmet was like any of the others worn by TIE pilots around the galaxy, enormous black eyes and a pair of tubes running from the jaw into a life support system below, but there was no air flowing through it.

Unlike the vast majority of Imperial fighters, his TIE/ph Phantom had life support. Several members of Sigma Squadron had taken advantage of this, and were wearing minimalist helmets that allowed them to enjoy the meager freedom of a Phantom's wide, twin-seat cockpit. Not Retton, though. He liked the weight of the full pilot's helmet, and had grown to enjoy the slight red tint it gave his vision. It reminded him that he was an invaluable part of the undeniable machine that was the Imperial Navy.

He had fought hard, literally tooth-and-nail at times, for this position. Retton's natural abilities were impossible to ignore. Had the young man accepted one of the numerous offers to join the newly-formed Rebellion, Retton likely would have been leading one of the flight groups that destroyed the Death Star. Beneath the helmet, he sneered. There had been nearly four-hundred-thousand men and women on that glorious battlestation, and one of them was his father. Then the scum had crawled from the swamps, found a tiny crack, and ripped it apart. Faces of smiling friends long gone, the clanking of glasses now empty.

When rumors of a second Death Star were still just rumors, Retton had petitioned every officer he knew for a transfer to the unfinished battlestation. Most of them denied it even existed, and the rest simply brushed him aside, except for one, a Lieutenant Rae Sloane. She saw in him what all those would-be Rebel recruiters had seen, and sent his name up the chain of command. Shortly afterwards, he nearly lost control of his bowels when he received transfer orders signed by Admiral Sarn himself. Retton's new assignment wasn't to some planet-destroying battlestation, but something even better, or at least something more suited to his skill set: Imdaar Alpha, a research and production facility for the Empire's newest space fighters.

Petty Officer Helerask tightened his grip on the Phantom's controls and swallowed back a mixture of fury and pride. When the second Death Star was completed, the rebel scum would surely come crawling once more, but Sigma Squadron would be there, and just as the traitors prepared their attack, he and his wingmates would appear from the black of space itself and kill every last one of them. He would kill their little family, just as they had done to him. Retton knew that Typ, the older man in the co-pilot's seat behind him, felt exactly the same.

He banked softly to port, following the designated patrol route, drawing a wide arc around the enormous Phantom production facility, and the recently-docked Super Star Destroyer _Terror._ Retton had never seen one of the flagships up close until it arrived a couple days ago. Before then he hadn't understood why someone would choose to shuffle around the tight halls of a Star Destroyer when they could be at the stick of a starfighter, mere meters from the enemy, able to make immediate, positive change for the galaxy with the pull of a trigger. After he got a good look at the _Terror_ , however, he could see the appeal.

Retton caught the flash of something off their port. He leaned forward and glanced at the enormous Imperial flagship. The _Terror_ had recently decloaked for an incoming transport, but the production plant remained invisible, giving the impression that the Super Star Destroyer was a free body in space. He watched the star-eclipsing battleship closely for several seconds. There, another flash, followed by smoke and debris.

"What was that?" Typ asked.

Retton's eyes grew wide. The Phantom project was one of the Empire's best-kept secrets, hidden away in the Dreighton Triangle, a rarely-used portion of space shrouded in myths and ghost stories. The logical conclusion was that something had gone catastrophically wrong with the Super Star Destroyer, perhaps a coolant leak that got out of hand. Retton's gut told him something else.

"Typ", he said, "Cloak us, I think we're under attack."

"From what? My scanners show nothing but Imperial."

"Just trust me."

Despite the considerable age gap, Typ deferred to Retton's instinct. The young pilot almost shivered as a slight charge ran through the fighter craft that surrounded him, and though he could see no difference from his seat, he knew that they were now invisible to both sensors and the naked eye. Retton turned sharply toward the _Terror_ just as another fireball burst from midships. Their radio flooded with voices, anger, confusion, nothing useful. He decided that the only way he was going to find out what was happening before it was too late was to fly straight at the problem.

Flowers of red and yellow bloomed quickly across the flat top of the Super Star Destroyer.

"Typ, try to tune out everything except Sigma Squadron."

"On it."

Retton wasn't sure how much of his squadron was in the air at the moment, but he desperately hoped that most of them were in their cockpits as he leaned into the ship's comm.

"This is Sigma Fourteen, I'm at oh-eight-five-three mark five and have eyes on the _Terror_. Any members of Sigma flight, please respond."

"Please" wasn't a common word in Imperial communications, but fears of another Yavin were creeping in. They continued toward the bursting flagship, and young Retton held his breath, silently begging for any familiar voices to rise over the chaotic din on the radio.

"Arm the guns," Retton said.

Typ began to protest, "Kid, I'm just as concerned as you, but we have no confirmation-"

"There isn't going to be confirmation! It doesn't work like that!"

His co-pilot said nothing in response, but Retton heard the comforting hum of the craft's five laser cannons warming up. The radio stayed mostly quiet, the cacophony of technicians and officers lowered to better hear any fellow pilots. Then his heart leapt.

 _"This is Sigma Leader. Sigma Fourteen, repeat your last."_

Sigma Leader. Pytr Wurn, a brilliant pilot and mentor. When Retton first arrived at Imdaar Alpha, Senior Chief Petty Officer Wurn broke the fingers of the first pilot to dismiss Retton because of his age.

"Copy, Sigma Leader, I am approaching the _Terror_ to determine the source of the-" He paused, unsure what to call whatever the hell was happening.

 _"Negative, Fourteen. We have orders to regroup at two-two-eight until we have more information."_

Two-two-eight was the starside-edge of Imdaar Alpha's scanner range. They were guiding everyone away from the Super Star Destroyer. The flagship had already been written-off. Retton nearly chewed his own teeth to fragments. _They're going to get away with it again._

"Well?" Typ said, "Head for the rendezvous."

He shook his head, a soft "No" echoing within the helmet.

"The blast do you mean, "No"?"

Retton hit the button on the comm once more. "Sigma Leader, I believe this is a Rebel attack."

There was hesitation in his CO's voice, but it wasn't immediately dismissive. _"Go on, Fourteen."_

"Sir, Lord Vader is on-board the _Terror_ , which means the best technicians in the Navy are aboard as well. This is not a technical error. This is an attack."

His commander went quiet. Retton cut the throttle back to half-speed, but their heading remained the same. He wasn't sure if he was still breathing. The young pilot knew that if Sigma Leader didn't change his mind, he still wouldn't be able to meet them at the rendezvous. Retton knew in his heart that there were Rebels inside the _Terror_ at that very moment, gleefully killing his comrades. Their TIE wouldn't be turning around, even if he had to stun Typ. At that point, he was looking at court martial and immediate execution. It didn't matter.

His flight leader came back over the comm, _"Sigma Squadron, form up on me, we're going to see what's happening to the_ Terror."

Retton relief almost came out as a laugh, and his admiration for the elder pilot grew infinitely stronger. He slowed the Phantom back to quarter speed to give time for his squadmates to catch up. About half of Sigma Squadron remained, roughly a dozen fighters, all cloaked. Retton could only tell that they were there on his specialized scanner, calibrated to pick up on concentrations of Stygium radiation, the waste product of their cloaking engines. The sensor created digital outlines on his canopy glass of where it believed his fellow Phantoms were, based on the radiation. They were forming up, and he took his place in the flight, once more part of his beloved greater machine.

An orchestra of oscillating screams built to a crescendo as Sigma Squadron sped towards the flagship, but it was already too late. What had been small bursts were now enormous fireballs that engulfed multiple levels at a time, and the destruction was quickly making its way up to the _Terror's_ bridge tower. It was a coin flip whether the craft's massive generator would simply go cold as the ship broke apart, or something would cause it to go critical and momentarily transform the Super Star Destroyer into a compact sun. It didn't matter to Retton, so long they made sure those responsible were as dead as the thousands aboard the ship.

The young Imperial leaned forward, obsessively watching the radar. Rebel fighters were mostly blocky, cumbersome things, with the obvious exception of the A-Wing, a woefully-underequiped stuntfighter that was more suited for airshows than combat. They were all in the Imperial database, easily recognizable even without the Rebellion's ridiculous naming system, and not a single one was anywhere on his monitors.

Doubt began to grow. Perhaps he had been paranoid, maybe his obsession with the rebel scum's victory over Yavin was clouding his better judgment. If Retton's gut was mistaken, he had just placed thirteen of the Empire's best pilots directly in harm's way without any good reason. At this point, he was pot committed. He had to be right. If the Rebels thought laterally, then so would he. There was no way an enemy fighter, alone or a small group, could approach the _Terror_ without being noticed, for the same reason the reactor wouldn't just start acting up on its own: there was too much skill aboard. No, the scumsuckers would have come cloaked in the skin of one of their own, possibly a supply shuttle, or a worker transport. Even in the chaos of the moment, though, all non-essential craft would be grounded, leaving only the-

"It's one of us!" Retton shouted into the radio.

Sigma Leader's voice came back, _"Sigma Fourteen, say again."_

"Whatever scum did this did it from the inside, so they're going to be leaving in one of the TIE Phantoms."

 _"Roger, Fourteen, I was thinking the same. Sigma squad, watch for untagged friendlies."_

On cue, the three-winged TIEs began to eke out from the dying flagship. The fighters escaped through whatever hole they could, but they all headed in the same direction, the original rendezvous point that Sigma Squadron had left at Retton's urging. He squinted, watching each little fighter peel away from the _Terror,_ and everything seemed to go quiet. The rest of the universe was irrelevant to him now.

A new voice bust through the comms, this time a woman. _"I think I see them,"_ she said, her voice crisp and cold, as though on a hunt. It was Sigma Nine, Eron Dulane. She tagged one of the escaping Phantoms for the rest of her squad, and Retton watched closely as it screamed away from the flagship at full speed. The ship's designation was "PH-213", and unlike the rest of the escaping fighters, it didn't immediately cloak, nor did it change direction toward the meet-up point.

 _"Pilot of PH-213,"_ Retton's CO commanded over the radio, _"Identify yourself and change course to two-two-eight."_

No response. That was good enough for Petty Officer Helerask, who dumped more fuel into his twin ion engines and sped towards the decidedly unfriendly TIE Phantom.

Commander Wurn declared, _"Sigma Fourteen, stay in formation,_ " but the order fell on deaf comms. Retton was on a mission, with his co-pilot Typ forced along for the ride. To the hapless passenger, Retton said, "Drop cloak on my mark."

He now had a good view of PH-213 and the treacherous bastard flying it. There was no way to tell if the Rebel had a co-pilot unless the fighter in question activated its cloaking system. Retton didn't care as his targeting systems painted a wide-spread crosshair pattern on his canopy. The reticle slowly collapsed around the rogue fighter, and when it closed into a solid square, a tone rang inside Retton's helmet and he shouted, "Mark!"

Another charge ran through his fingertips, but this time Retton embraced it, felt it carry up his back and into his face, shaping the predatory sneer on his lips. He pulled the trigger and a trio of green lances were flung from his Phantom's wingtips. It was nearly three agonizing seconds before the shots closed the distance, and Sigma Fourteen didn't wait to watch. He continued to fire for as long as he had lock, unaware of the molar that had just shattered from the pressure in his jaw.

The first salvo reached its destination, and one of the shots hit the Phantom's body between two of the wings. A semicircle of blue-white energy pulsed across the fighter's fuselage, dissipating in crackling tendrils that fizzled to nothing in the black of space. The shot had been clean, but without their cloak active, the rogue Phantom was able to take advantage of yet another feature it didn't share with its other TIE brethren: shields. That shot seemed to wake the pilot, who began to wheel and dance past the stream of follow-up shots. Retton continued to close on the rebel scum, fully aware of his visible his fighter now was.

PH-213 cut back towards Petty Officer Helerask and the incoming Sigma Squadron. Retton dumped three more groups of shots in the Rebel's direction, and he was almost certain he tagged the fighter before screaming past him. As the young pilot peeled sharply around, he felt the shards of bone making tiny cuts in his mouth, and he lifted his helmet away just enough to spit the collection of blood and teeth across his console. Retton watched his squadmates dropping out of cloak and opening fire on the Rebel, but the slimeball was good, and began to fire back. One of his fellow Phantoms exploded as it tried to recloak, then a second one.

Sigma Nine's scream was cut short, and what was left of Elon's body tumbled from her shredded fighter. Retton shook his head, confused and angrier than ever. He shoved the throttle controls further, but an artificial hand buried within the TIE's components fought back, trying to prevent the young man from pushing the fighter beyond its manufacturer-designated limits. Another few seconds of watching before he was in position for another pass, and another member of Sigma squadron became ionized debris.

Retton's stomach became a machine of acid and hate, and he pounded at the console before him with a closed fist, desperate for the Imperial craft to do as it was told, structural consequences be damned. The young Imperial felt the heat rising, building in his sinuses and eyes, wanting more than anything else to simply reach out with his hand through empty space, to grasp the murderer, and crush him between his black-gloved fingers. Finally, the Phantom finished the arc and Retton could resume his pursuit. However, just as his targeting computer began to reacquire PH-213, there was a thunderous explosion behind him. His radar erupted in warnings, and the radio's perpetual noise rose to a fever pitch.

The Super Star Destroyer _Terror_ had just exploded.

Shockwaves rocked Retton's TIE Phantom, and Typ was thrown from the co-pilot seat. Retton began to swear, and didn't stop. He practically bounced in his seat from the growing impatience at his targeting system. The Rebel was almost in range. He expected to see the rogue Phantom preparing for a hyperspace jump, and as the fighter slowed to power its lightspeed engine, Retton would kill him. Retton would kill him again and again and again until it was a small sphere of unidentifiable shards, nothing left of the piece of slime save perhaps a finger or boot.

But Sigma Fourteen got no alert of a primed lightspeed engine. His target apparently changed its mind, and was now cutting low and starboard. Retton had to scramble to cut thrusters and pull hard at his control yoke to keep the Rebel in his sights. It made no sense. The damage was more than done, the Imdar system would be a graveyard of parts, both mechanical and organic, for decades to come.

As he came around, Retton was forced to see the hellish warped skeleton where the proud flagship _Terror_ once rested. Panels the size of freighters tumbled away in all directions, and hundreds of small fires, consuming the last of the craft's oxygen, continued to burn across the massive mangled frame like strings of Empire Day lights. Bodies, whole and otherwise, drifted into space, propelled into awkward spins, bouncing against one-another. Many of the limp bodies collided and refused to separate, becoming entangled balls of uniform, flesh, and wide, horrified eyes. Retton found even more capacity for anger, new compartments within his mind for storage of his growing hatred, but it wasn't until his entire canopy filled with a wash of glowing blue did he begin to realize what his target was doing.

Imdaar Alpha Research Station, a hollow moon decorated with massive hangars and docking claws, dropped its cloak. The massive station's stealth system was probably shorted out by the _Terror's_ detonation, and the explosion had also incinerated one of the enormous docking claws, leaving a sizable cylinder exposed to open space. That's where his Rebel target was headed. Confusion pushed fury aside. The rebel trash was infamous for the underhandedness of their attacks, often suicidal in nature, but what the pilot in front of Retton was attempting had a zero chance of success, suicidal tendencies or otherwise. Imdaar Alpha's innards were a dense weave of factory lines, assembly droids, chemical pipelines, crystal refineries, and plain old superstructure. Most points in the station were just wide enough for finished parts of TIE Phantoms to be assembled elsewhere. There just wasn't room for a starfighter to pass through, much less one going at the Rebel's current speed. Nevertheless, that was unquestionably the murderer's plan.

Now, Retton had to decide if he would follow. The decision seemed obvious on the surface: if the Rebel wanted to spread himself across the pistons and conveyors within Imdaar Alpha, he was more-than-welcome as far as Sigma Fourteen was concerned. Something pulled at him though, that same instinctual pain that had told him that this was no technical accident. The idea of a couple of Rebel spies destroying a Super Star Destroyer would have seemed impossible too, until a few seconds ago, and then there was the Death Star. Still, Retton had seen numerous schematics of the inside of the assembly station. It just didn't seem possible, and if he followed the killer into the broken docking tunnel, it would only mean certain death for all involved.

Petty Officer Helerask wanted to see the rebel scum burn, but it was just as likely that Retton himself would clip a beam and tumble into a fatal collision before catching the admittedly-skilled pilot. So he would wait.

Finally regaining his composure, Typ asked, "Where is that Hutt-slime going?"

Each syllable thick with acid, Retton said, "To kill himself," and guided their own TIE Phantom away from the gigantic station.

"Well, at least that'll be a little bit of justice at the end of, whatever the hell this was."

Retton sighed at the word "justice". This wasn't any sort of justice, it was the Rebel coward's choice to run his fighter into the station's walls. He steered them away from the expanding cloud of wreckage from the dead flagship and put them on a path that would take them around Imdaar Alpha to the rendezvous point on the other side. They flew slowly, the ion thrusters reflecting their pilot's disheartened state.

The Imperial comm traffic had died down considerably with the destruction of the _Terror_ , and Retton was finally able to make out bits and pieces of communication. The tone had shifted from anger and confusion to exhaustion. It was somehow worse that there had been no battle, that they had lost without even knowing the fight had begun. He wondered how many of his comrades would have preferred a soldier's death to this confused mourning. Retton began to radio in the Rebel's actions, but didn't have the heart to even bother. Within a few minutes, among the many befuddled reports coming from workers within Imdaar Alpha, one would contain details of a TIE Phantom that had exploded across one of the many assembly lines. Right now, Retton just wanted to rejoin what remained of his squadron.

Typ, staring at the instruments on his console, breathlessly whispered, "No way, no way in hell."

"What?"

"Turn around, and fast."

Sigma Fourteen did as he was told and his heart fell through the bottom of the cockpit. Many kilometers beyond, near the visible starboard horizon of Imdaar Alpha, a piercing line of red light erupted from the moon, blasting chunks of rock into space. The giant laser, part of the station's complex core, was tearing through its own housing, slowly slicing the moon in half from within. Fire leaked from the expanding crack, and through the fire, Retton saw it: the rogue Phantom, speeding into the black freedom of open space.

"No! No! No!" The young pilot repeated, kicking at the metal at his feet and slamming his throttle forward. He didn't know how, he didn't care. Retton opened fire, a useless gesture at this distance, but the lasers were faster than his ship, and something _had_ to reach that scumsucker before-

The TIE Phantom, its murderous Rebel pilot likely grinning ear-to-ear at the countless lives he had just taken, stretched out and then disappeared into hyperspace. Gone. Untraceable. Retton kept them at full-throttle in the direction the murderer headed, more pointlessness. He screamed, he punched metal until his knuckles broke and his hands bled.

"Retton," Typ said, but the name was washed out by the pilot's rage. Again, he tried, "Retton," but still the pilot screamed-on. "Kid!"

Finally, Sigma Fourteen turned to face his co-pilot, and asked through blood and choked tears, "What could you possibly want right now?"

"I want to live, and if you do too, then you need to get us away from the station, because that thing is going critical as we speak."

Weakly, Retton asked, "What does it even matter?"

"Don't you think that bastard killed enough of us today?"

The younger Imperial nodded and, their ship still at maximum speed, turned away from Imdaar Alpha. His co-pilot's words echoed in his mind, and a dagger shot up his back as Retton realized that the rendezvous point on the other side of the station was well within the inevitable blast radius. He rushed to his comm.

"All craft, move away from Imdaar Alpha! Repeat, all Imperial ships immediately move away from Imda-"

A full quarter of the moon exploded out like a hatching egg, and a hellish rumble, deeper and fuller than anything he had ever heard before, rushed up behind Retton with terrifying speed. Fire and metal and rock, many, many rocks, slammed into the back of their TIE Phantom. They tumbled, lights failed, lived, and failed again as consoles exploded, filling the cockpit with blue lightning.

Retton fought multiple G's pushing at his very bones and clawed his way back into the pilot's chair. Through the canopy glass, space was filled with frozen rock and metal scrap, and all of it was spinning very quickly. He fought the vomit back down, figured out their direction of spin, and feathered the thrusters to ease them down into a stable position. He checked their systems. From the few consoles that survived, it seemed that they still had most of their thrusters and life support, though their shields, weapons, and cloaking engines were all gone.

He turned to check on Typ, who was still in the chair, straps in place, head and arms slumped forward. A dagger-like piece from a dislodged panel in the back was protruding through the man's chest. Fluids bubbled slowly out from the gaps in the wound.

Retton spoke into the radio, "Sigma Squadron, this is Sigma Fourteen, respond."

Nothing came back. He repeated the call, the silence returned in kind. He looked back at the dead man in the co-pilot's seat. Retton wanted to scream some more, swear, throw fists, cry, but he was empty. He felt as lifeless as Typ, and briefly envied him. Death would have been so much better than this, he thought. He unbuckled his restraints and let his head fall forward onto the sparking console and discovered that he still had a few tears left. He let them come, there was no one around to chastise him for it. Through the moisture, Retton spotted the section of his diagnostic screen that contained the cloaking system status.

He then realized that there was one last bit of hope. As far as Retton knew, he was currently in the last surviving TIE Phantom. With the Imdaar Alpha station destroyed, and the Phantom project strewn across the Dreighton system, his fighter was now one of the most valuable things in the galaxy. If he could get it back to the Empire, something could be salvaged from this catastrophe. In this sea of soldering embers and death, it was a small something, but Retton felt that he owed it to the many, many lives lost today to do whatever he could.

The Phantom project had been one of the best-kept secrets in the Galactic Empire, so Retton wasn't expecting anyone to come looking for survivors. A stray thought occurred to him: Had Lord Vader survived? From everything that Retton had heard from others, Darth Vader's claims of magical abilities were very real, so it was possible that the last member of Sigma Squadron wasn't the only survivor, but none of that would help him now.

Long-range sensors were damaged, but not destroyed entirely. At the very edges of his sensor's reach, a clear and powerful signal appeared: another Super Star Destroyer, the _Ravager_. If his very shaken memory was correct, that was the most recent posting of Lieutenant Sloane, the woman who had first recognized his talent. With his current fuel capacity, the _Ravager_ was within reach of a hyperspace jump, but just barely. He eased the Phantom out of the debris cloud and said a silent prayer before making the jump to lightspeed.

Senior Chief Retton Helerask walked briskly through the halls of the _Ravager_. The flagship was now one of the last of its kind, an icon among a quickly-shrinking fleet. Fourteen years ago, he had watched as the _Terror_ was ripped apart from the inside. Afterwards, he had found save haven in these very halls. Fully-expecting to face a court-martial and firing squad for his cowardice, he had instead been rewarded for his efforts in bringing back the last remaining TIE Phantom.

He was thirty-three now, though time had worked at his face in such a way to make him look nearly twice that. As ever before, his reddish-brown hair was still trimmed down to a very short buzz, though gray was threatening the edges.

Retton had just concluded an instructional briefing for his men, Onyx Squadron. The name had been used briefly by a squadron of TIE Defenders about seven years ago, though it had since gone unused until he had been tasked with picking a new name for his flight. Considering what this Onyx Squadron was flying, there had been a temptation to include some oblique reference to ghosts in the name, but Retton chose something more respectable. Charm and a sense of humor had never been part of his arsenal, and the enormous losses the Empire had suffered over the years had only buried them further. He shook his head, not one to dwell, and picked up the pace on his way to the bridge.

He took the turbolift to the floor just below the command deck, another tight hall with only a handful of doors on either side. These were the offices of the highest-ranking officers aboard, as well as a conference room at the end, which is the room he entered now.

Seated at the far end of the long slab of marbled, varnished wood was an older woman, with dark skin and silver hair tied back in a loose ponytail. Despite being nearly sixty, Admiral Sloane's eyes were sharp, seemingly taking in everything visible and even some things not. Retton moved to attention and saluted before accepting an invitation to have a seat.

"Senior Helerask," the Admiral said, her voice strong, yet kind. "How was your briefing?"

"Productive," he said. "They're shaping up well."

"I expected nothing less. You have served the Empire well over the years. This past decade has been a very trying time, and I have seen many a man break, or worse, turn tail to the New Republic."

Retton liked that she called them the New Republic, as opposed to "Rebels". It was that pragmatism that had kept her and those serving under her alive through the fracturing of the once-great Imperial Navy. He hated them with every fiber of his being, but living in denial meant not living very long.

She continued, "You know, when Grand Admiral Thrawn, may he rest well, gave me the task of resurrecting the Phantom project, I thought it was a fool's errand. So much of the Empire's time, resources, and manpower had been wasted on preposterous superweapons and special projects."

"I take it you were not a fan of the Tarkin initiative?"

A rare sneer came across her lips, "Let's not mince words, Retton. Grand Moff Tarkin was a short-sighted fool. Putting hundreds of thousands of capable men and women in one ridiculous battlestation, just to scare a few potential defectors back into line? That's not intimidation, that is idiocy. I know your father was on one of those battlestations."

"Yes sir, the first Death Star."

The odd kindness returned, "I am sorry that he lost his life in vain. However, back to the point, when I saw what you and Onyx Squadron is it?"

"Yessir."

"When I saw what your Onyx Squadron was capable-of in these few short months, I saw that this was so much more than a ridiculous, lumbering superweapon. The ability to strike any target at any time, and more importantly, the ability to disappear before anything can be done in return... These TIE Phantoms are going to be the quiet knife that will stab through heart of the New Republic, and I am pleased that you are in charge of their execution."

"Thank you, sir."

Admiral Sloane called up a holovid, which was projected in the air above the center of the table. It was a brief clip, only seconds long, and showed a trio of X-Wings taking out four TIEs, two Fighters, two Interceptors. Retton leaned forward when he saw one of the X-Wings, presumably the squad leader, eliminating both of the Interceptors with relative ease.

With the holo still playing, the Admiral said to her best pilot, "I know that your men have recently picked apart a few Republic fighters in this sector, but my intelligence says that they have called in a ringer, as it were. Have your men ready, Senior Chief, I want to strike the moment we have these fighters in our sight again."


End file.
